


Lights will guide you home

by KrystinaSky



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-30
Updated: 2016-10-09
Packaged: 2018-05-17 04:21:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5854057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KrystinaSky/pseuds/KrystinaSky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's the little things that tell the soul-deep stories. Luke and Mara let go of the past and find each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I don't even know. I watched TFA and this happened.

_ “We are old now” _ the little boy in the sweep of the dark cloak whispers. 

A thousand sandstorms ago there had been fire roaring between them, but now all the old man hears past the rattle of death is the air refresh system turning on automatically and the creak of the armor of watching guards.

He feels the boy there before he sees him,  _ told him to stay, but then I always do _ where he shouldn’t be because where else would he be? Always in the Sky these boys, and it makes him want to smile.

But if he listens carefully he can hear the fire and smell the way the flesh burned when it caught the little boy in the dark.

_ “Then let me too end in fire,”  _ he whispers back. 

The old man lifts his weapon toward his face and the last thing these eyes will see is the burning blue.

Blue and fire, and a boy in the sky: it ends the way it began.

Of course it does.

He dies on an exhale.

 

“Why did you give this to me?” she demands, thrusting the old hilt at him.

“You’ve been using that for years, why are you asking me this  _ now? _ ”

He looks nervous and he  _ should  _ because, “this was  _ his _ lightsaber!”

He recoils, finally, “That was  _ my  _ lightsaber,” he snaps back, “and  _ before _ that is was  _ my father's _ lightsaber.”

she laughs but it isn't funny, “He  _ killed _ Jedi with this.”

He stands up, and if he wasn’t himself he would be angry, “It was mine,” he says again, “It was mine, Mara. But I guess if you’re offended by that...” Before she can blink he’s snatched it out of her hands and he’s halfway down the damp stone hall. 

She curls her empty hands into fists.

_ That night she steals it back while he’s sleeping and flies away. _

 

A few months later Han Solo sits across from her in a dirty booth, balancing a half-empty empty glass on it’s edge.

“Her name’s Callista,” he says, “She’s some kind of Jedi, they’re telling me. Anyway, the kid’s a bit mad for her.”

Mara takes a long drink from her own glass.

“You like her?”

“Nah,” he says, “Luke thinks… I think he thinks anyway, you know, that she’s kinda… like him...he likes that.”

“So?”

Solo is tipsy, she’s sure, because he says, “Look, I don’t get this Jedi shit. All I know is Leia isn’t like me. And, I mean, that’s good. That’s really good.”

The glass tips and there’s alcohol everywhere. 

“I’m sure,”

 

That night Mara’s hands are so cold she can’t sleep. She reaches for Anakin Skywalker’s lightsaber in it’s place under her pillow and somehow her hands aren’t so cold around it. She thinks, as she eases into sleep, that they’d just been empty.

_ She dreams that Anakin Skywalker is wrapping his finger around her fingers around the hilt of his lightsaber and they are killing the emperor. _

 

It’s all business with Leia up until the end. Something had been buzzing the whole time, back behind the talk of trade agreements and intelligence gathering. Mara lingers when they’re finished, tracing the handguard of the lightsaber at her belt under the conference room table.

“Callista left,” Leia says abruptly, as she shuts down her holopad and and relaxes back into her seat.

“Why?” 

“I don’t know, something to do with the force.” Leia shakes her head, “Luke just…” she stops, a worried crease in her brow, and tiny, neat fingers tapping on the glossy table.

“Luke what?”

 

She finds him on Yavin in the same place where she left him, and it could’ve been the next day but for the fact that he’s thin and tired, and it’s all making him look old, like it’s been 20 years more than the two it’s actually been since she last saw him.

“Hey, Farmboy,” she says.

“Mara,” he sounds suitably surprised, “What brings you here?”

“Well,” she crosses her arms and looks up at one of the high windows where sunlight is catching dust moats and water vapor in the air, “I got in a scuffle out in the Kordena system…. some idiot with a rapid-fire blaster rifle got a shot through my defences.”

She unhooks his lightsaber from her belt and holds it out toward him, “I guess maybe I could use some practice with this thing.”

He smiles.

It’s small but there, wearing away at the too-many years on his face, and he stands up with a long suffering sigh.

“First of all,” he stands right in front of her, his heart in front of the hilt. His fingers find hers and when she breathes in, he smells like sand, “I keep telling you, you’ve got to shift your hands a bit, like this.”

 


	2. If you never try you'll never know

Mara can tell when they step into the cafeteria that Luke hasn’t been a regular there. Students look and pretend not to and she can feel the questions the new ones ask the older ones about her and about them together and the way the answer makes them all feel. 

“I have no idea what’s on the menu tonight” Luke cuts through the unsettled buzz, “Sorry in advance if it’s terrible.”

Mara shrugs, letting her shoulders shift back toward the tilt of his own, “it usually is.”

“Is that why you haven’t been back in two years?” The way he asks is light but the question isn’t and she isn’t ready to answer yet so she says, “one of the reasons,” with a little shrug.

The food actually isn’t terrible. They try to eat it in the corner but the attention they draw is palpable so they wind up outside, damp seeping through the moss and trouser legs but it’s still more comfortable than inside.

“So have you just not been eating at all?” Mara asks Luke, watching him speed through his meal with no finesse, plate balanced on his crossed legs like a little boy.

“I was meditating. I’m always hungry after meditating.”

“How long were you ‘,meditating’?”

“I don’t know… a few hours…. and yesterday...about a week.”

“Normal people call that ‘sulking’, skywalker.”

To her surprise he shoots her a sardonic little grin, “A step up from pouting, at least.”

“Not a very big one though.”

They eat quietly for a moment. Luke asks about Lando and she rolls her eyes and tells him she has no idea what Lando is up to and doesn’t really care. 

“He’s your friend anyway, why ask me?”

“I thought you two were...close.”

“We’re not.”

“Oh.”

He’s quiet again for a moment, then asks, “How did you know?”

“About what?”

“Callista leaving.”

“I haven’t said anything about Callista leaving. I told you - I came because some idiot managed to shoot me.”

Skywalker returns to his food, “So I guess Leia told you, then.”

“Skywalker, I have  _ business  _ meetings with your sister. We don’t sit around gossiping about you. We talk about important things, like trade agreements and security and--”

“When I talked to Leia--” he cuts her off and she returns the favor immediately, 

“Hang on, she said you haven’t spoken to her-”

She stops herself this time and he snickers, “Ha! You did talk about me.”

“Fine, but very briefly. Sandwiched in between important business things.”

“She’s worried, yeah?”

“Considering you haven’t spoken with her in months….”

“I called her a couple days ago,” he smirks, “We talked about you. Briefly. Sandwiched in between important twin things.”

“Why would you talk about me?” 

Skywalker shrugs, “Leia just mentioned you’d come by. She said you’d been shot… and that you’d asked about me.”

“I didn’t. She brought it up.”

“You asked though.”

“I was being polite.”

He raises an eyebrow at her over a forkful of food and Mara drops her eyes quickly,

“Stop that. I’m polite sometimes, it’s called ‘negotiation’, Skywalker. I’m good at that, actually.”

“I know, I’ve seen it, you can be very charming. Just...not usually with Leia.”

“I like your sister.’

“Yeah but you’ve never felt the need to be particularly polite.”

“Look, she said Callista left. I asked how you were handling it. She said, ‘poorly’. Then we talked about other things. That’s it, that’s all that happened.”

“Then you came here.”

“Right. Because someone shot me. We’ve been over this.”

“Ok,” he smiles, “Thank you.”

“Why are you thanking me? For getting shot?”

“Sure, Mara, I’m thanking you for getting shot.” He drops his fork, sets his plate aside and stands up. 

“Thank the other guy then, I was trying to not get shot.”

Luke takes her empty plate and offers her his hand, “Aren’t we all.”

He smiles and Mara tries to remember whether or not she’s let him help her up before. She can’t remember. She’s not sure why it matters, either.

“Coming?” he asks.

“Suppose I’ve come this far, might as well.”

She takes his hand and his smile tells her it’s the first time after all as he pulls her to her feet. 


	3. Coming out of reverse

In an uncharacteristically dirty move he deadens her strong arm with a well-placed kick to the elbow. Mara tries to recover quickly, reaching for the falling saber with her other arm. She almost manages it, but at the last moment, attention divided as he circles around for another blow, it slips through her fingers, leaving charred grass and moss in it’s wake with a wet sizzle before the safety kicks in and the blade goes out. Luke frowns, turning off his own lightsaber and returning it to his belt, picking hers up and examining the old hilt.

“The size is wrong for you,” he notes. “Sorry, should’ve thought of that.”

“Of course it’s wrong,” she retrieves it from him, “Doesn’t matter though, It still does the job.”

“I can show you how to make your own, if you’d like. It might make learning a little easier, if your weapon is customized to fit.”

She raises an eyebrow, “Trying to get your old lightsaber back, Skywalker?”

“What? No! I mean… I just,” he shrugs, “You don’t have to keep it.” he glances away, awkward like he was when he took it back the last time, “Sorry about last time,” he admits, softly. “I… wasn’t really thinking about my father when I gave it to you. Sorry.”

“I wasn’t thinking about him either, when I took it. Both times.”

They stand there awkwardly not looking at each other for a few seconds, before Luke says, “I thought about it and… should I have told you why I gave it to you? I guess it wasn’t very clear, was it?”

“I thought you wanted me to be a jedi.”

“I did! I mean, I do, but that wasn’t really… I mean it was but…” He trails off and starts again, “How long did you manage to convince Karde he could go without you?” He asks.

Mara frowns at the sudden tpoc change but goes along with it, “a few months.”

“A few-- you’re staying for a few months?” he sounds surprised. And happy.

“Yeah. I hate getting shot.”

Luke grins, the best smile she’s seen yet.

“Never mind then, I’ll tell you later. Another round?”

She shakes her head, “You’re a strange one, Skywalker.”


	4. From up above

“What do you do for fun?” he asks her. They’re back in his meditation room, but this time there is a bottle of whiskey between them and very little actual meditation going on. 

And maybe it’s the alcohol (although she’s never been a lightweight) because she deadpans, “I draw portraits of the emperor, It’s been my hobby since childhood.”

Luke laughs, “Do you put him in different outfits?”

“Yes, especially yellow ones to bring out his eyes.”

He doubles over laughing and the surrealness of the moment tries to catch her but Mara shakes it off.

“What do you do for fun, Skywalker?” she asks instead.

“I write jedi recruitment speeches, of course.”

“Of course you do. Are they all as shitty as the ones you lay on me?”

“No, I had to change the format since I ran out of meaningful lightsaber gifts to give people.”

“Meaningful was it?”

He grins, “Yep, I only had the one, so…”

Mara rolls her eyes but there’s something warm there too, “Are you going to tell me yet? What it meant?”

He shakes his head and says instead, “I fly for fun. It’s my favorite thing to do. Your turn.” Luke pours another shot in her glass and there’s something about the way he smiles at her as he sets the bottle down. He looks young, and for the first time in a long time Mara remembers the grainy image of a very young man on an imperial intelligence report she’d held many, many years before. 

_ “Tatooine,”  _ she remembers thinking,  _ “A planet with two suns.” _

“I dance,” she throws the shot back quickly and sees the look - almost like awe for some reason - on his face when she puts her empty glass back down on the floor.

“What?” she asks.

“You dance? Really?”

“Yes. You knew that - I told you about Jabba’s palace.”

“I know, but I thought that was because you  _ had  _ to. I didn’t know you do it because you  _ want  _ to. Still? You still dance?”

“Sometimes.”

He leans forward, looking excited, “Can you dance now?”

“No. i mean, yes but no….Wait, why?”

“Because I want to see.”

“It’s just dancing…”

“No, it’s Mara Jade dancing.”

“You are a strange one, Skywalker.”

“Can you teach me?” he asks.

“To dance?”

“Yeeesss.”

“You want to dance?”

“If you’re teaching, then yes. Please? Think about it - I’ve beaten you like 25 times over the last two weeks at lightsaber dueling. Now you can beat me at something. He waggles his eyebrows which is legitimately something she has never seen him do, “You know that sounds like fun.”

“Except you don’t really  _ win  _ at dancing…”

“I’ll look like an idiot and you will be amazing, how is that not winning?”

“You make a good case, Skywalker.”


	5. Light-up bones

 

“No,” she says, with a sigh, when he’s still moving stiffly and thinking too hard, “Like this,” she tilts her head back and her arms move and her feet move and when she stills moments later Skywalker is clapping slowly,

“That was beautiful,” he says.

“Not the point,” she insists, not able to hold his gaze for some silly reason. “Your turn.”

He shakes his head even as he tries to copy her movements, “of course that’s the point," he argues, "it’s  _ dancing.” _

He still gets it wrong. With a sigh Mara steps into his space, holds his hands and tells him to copy her foot movements and they’ll do it together. 

“Loosen up,” she orders, sliding her hands up his arms to shake his shoulders, “relax, you’re thinking too much.”

“Have you met me? That’s what I do.”

“Well stop for a minute," she meets his eyes, "and mirror me, alright?”

She drops her hands lower, “Hips like this.”

He smirks, “Watch it, Jade.”

“ _ You  _ watch it, Farmboy.”

When he gets it right he smiles like sunshine and squeezes her hands.

 


End file.
